Branding: Assignment #2 Choosing a Logo

The first part of your logo — and perhaps the only part — is the font or fonts you use to spell out your business’ name.

And just like a professional handwriting analyst can tell things about your personality by the way you sign your name, your potential customers and audience will subconsciously intuit things about your business by the fonts you use and how you use them.

The first thing to do is go back to your themes and archetypes — what personality traits are you trying to convey?

If you want people to think of you and your business as young and fresh, your choice of fonts will be much different than if you’re going for mature and stable.

Download the list of brand personality traits and follow the instructions to select your top three personality traits.

Then, visit MyFonts.com and enter your business name in the custom text field to see what various fonts would like as your logo.

Keep in mind these three main points when choosing a font to accompany your logo design:

Avoid the most commonly used fonts, such as Comic Sans or Papyrus. Using one will make your design come off as amateurish.

Make sure the font is legible when scaled down, especially with script fonts.

One font is ideal, but don’t use more than two.

Strongly consider a custom font for your design. The more original the font, the more it will distinguish the brand. Examples of successful logos that have a custom font are Yahoo!, Twitter, and Coca Cola. Your designer will usually take an existing font and modify it slightly to get that custom feel.